Note: This story has been updated with breaking news on new candidate endorsements for Friday, February 13.

The race to head the Colorado Republican Party is heating up this week as county parties pick officers and bonus members to the state central committee, which will cast its votes for state chair and other positions next month.

State GOP chair Ryan Call, seeking a third two-year term, says that the party’s performance in the last election — from record-breaking fundraising to a massive get-out-the-vote operation — demonstrates that he’s best qualified to lead Republicans into what promises to be a hotly-contested presidential year with Colorado again at the center of attention.

But his challenger, former gubernatorial candidate Steve House, argues that the party needs fresh leadership in the wake of an election he terms a “missed opportunity.”

While Republicans reclaimed a majority in the state Senate for the first time in a decade and unseated a U.S. senator for the first time in 36 years, the GOP lost the governor’s race and fell short in a bid to win a majority in the state House, results critics say display the state party’s under-performance.

“Don’t vote for me unless you intend to live in a conservative state governed by a Republican majority that stands firmly for the platform we believe in,” House told a packed meeting of Douglas County Republicans at their reorganization meeting on Tuesday night in Castle Rock.

The GOP failed in Colorado last year to ride a national Republican wave “to get rid of Common Core and energy mandates and 2nd amendment rights violations,” he said. “I don’t think we can afford to do that again.”

House’s campaign says the former Adams County GOP chair ran the table at county meetings this past week, picking up overwhelming majorities in every large county and even, in some cases, locking down unanimous support for House.

“It’s a tidal wave of liberty and constitutionalists that are running for bonus members,” state GOP secretary Lana Fore, who is endorsing House and running for a second term herself, told The Colorado Statesman this week. “It’s a wave of, ‘We need to take our state back,’ to fight for the 100,000 Republicans that have left the Republican Party — we need to bring those people back.”

After this week’s reorganizations, the House campaign counts 10 of 15 available votes on the state central committee in its camp out of Adams County, 15 of 23 from Arapahoe County, 10 of 13 from Denver, 22 of 25 from Jefferson County, seven of the 10 votes out of Mesa County, nine of 11 from Boulder County, and all 13 of the votes in Weld County. In Douglas County, 16 of the 19 bonus members and officers are backing House.

Call, saying that he isn’t taking anything for granted but is confident in his prospects, countered that he’s already demonstrated that he can bring Republicans together — and win elections, to boot.

“The great thing is, we have the opportunity to run on a winning record with the endorsement and support of Cory Gardner, every (Republican) member of Congress, our statewide elected officials, and, most important to me, the support of our counties, especially the rural counties that have seen the incredible progress we have made as a party: success we’ve seen on Election Day, but, more importantly, the ability to turn around a party in decline and make it more competitive, that can win elections in Colorado again,” Call told The Statesman.

Reminding Republicans that the state party was on the ropes when he took office, Call said that the state chair race is an opportunity to see the progress the GOP has made.

“Our mascot is the elephant — never forget,” Call told Douglas County Republicans. “Think back just four years ago to what the state of our party was then. Our candidate for governor had gotten just 11 percent of the vote; we almost became a minor political party,” he said, referencing the ill-fated campaign of gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes. In addition, he added, the GOP that year had only raised $580,000 and given just $4,000 to candidates.

“That’s not the way to run a state political party,” Call said. “I came in with a promise that we would do better. And we’ve done that. In the last four years, we’ve dramatically turned around the operations of our state party.”

Call pointed to hefty boosts in fundraising and contributions to Republican candidates since he took office, including $265,000 in 2012, $140,000 in the 2013 recall elections, and $450,000 in the 2014 elections. The $3.3 million raised in the last cycle, he said, also went to county operations and a massive ground operation that “rivaled and beat the Democrats at their own game.”

Attorney General Cynthia Coffman made a splash when she endorsed House last month — her cohorts among statewide elected Republicans, State Treasurer Walker Stapleton and Secretary of State Wayne Williams, are enthusiastic Call supporters — and has been stumping for House at county reorganizations.

Coffman told the Douglas County Republicans she was excited to report that she’d filed her first lawsuit against the federal government earlier that day — “There will be many more opportunities, I’m sure,” she added to cheers — over the endangered status of the Western Sage Grouse. But then she said she wanted to use the rest of her time on stage to discuss House and why, she said, “I’m willing to put my political capital on the line to support him.”

Saying she got to know House on the campaign trail when he was running for governor, Coffman praised his message and his manner. “He listened. He listened to folks at the grassroots level, what their concerns were, where they were, and he addressed them. Folks, that is what we need in a state party chair,” she said, adding that she decided late last year to urge him to run for chair.

Noting that she made a commitment to Call that the challenge wouldn’t be about “criticizing him and the work he has done,” Coffman said that her endorsement was, instead, “about a vision that I think Steve has for the party going forward. It’s important to me that we make a change now.”

Like other House supporters, she invoked the party’s grassroots.

“I told folks who feel disenfranchised from this party, who feel like they are outside the tent and can’t find their way back in, that, if I had a chance, I would be a voice for them,” Coffman said, adding, “We need to build a foundation for winning state elections, and that starts at the grassroots level.” Concluding, she said, “There’s top-down management and there’s bottom-up management. It’s time we included everyone who wants to be a part of this.”

House told The Statesman that Coffman’s support underlines his ability to bring the party’s often fractious camps together.

“I can’t be happier with the number of people who have come up to me and said that they want change and they want a new style of leadership and they want to bring the party together in a unified way,” he said. “Having people like Cynthia Coffman and Tom Tancredo and supporters of both supporting me has been just a great blessing for me.” (Tancredo, who ran second in the gubernatorial primary last year, is also a vocal House backer.)

The charges lobbed by House and his allies echo similar complaints about Call during his previous two successful runs for state party chair. Asked by The Statesman whether this year’s contest is fundamentally different, Call responded with a smile, citing an adage often used by former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan: “Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.”

“That is an unfortunate reality,” he said, “that when people are frustrated, they’re looking for someone to direct that frustration to. People are mad about John Boehner, people are mad about John McCain, people are mad that the Republicans in Congress can’t get something past the veto threats of the President, and they’re looking for someone to be mad at. And the chairman presents a very ready target.”

It comes with the job, Call said.

“Sometimes I have to make decisions as chairman that leave people disappointed, because we can’t invest as much as we might like in particular campaigns or particular races — we have to make judgment calls, and it’s bound to leave some people disappointed,” Call continued. “But I think anyone who would take an honest, objective look at the record, at fundraising, at candidate support, at turning around the political landscape in Colorado — certainly, we didn’t score touchdowns on every single drive, but we put more points on the board than we’ve seen in this state in many years, and I’m proud of that record I’m running on.”

Call acknowledged that House was “a good man” who “gives a great, charismatic speech,” but contended that his challenger “doesn’t have that record of performance, at fundraising, in many years of party service and even completing a term as a county chairman, much less the many years of sustained success and performance that we’ve been able to bring.”

When it comes down to it, Call said, “I’m hopeful that the members of our committee are thoughtful in recognizing that the person you want elected as your state chairman is the kind of guy that can deliver real results, as opposed to simply making a lot of promises.”

For his part, House cautioned Republicans to keep their eyes on the prize and avoid expending all their energy on intraparty fights.

“The Democrats are waiting outside that door waiting for us to do battle with them,” House said. “And if we don’t figure out that the battle out there is more passionate and more important than the battle we have in here, we are not going to get there.”

Expressing a similar sentiment, Fore said in an email to The Statesman, “We need to remember that we now may be fighting our in-house battles, but we are all on the same team. It’s sad to see that some within our party are so hateful and non-inclusive.”

Republicans meet to pick party leadership on the morning of March 14 at Douglas County High School in Castle Rock. The party holds its annual Centennial Dinner the night before.

Former Douglas County chair Mark Baisley, who lost a bid to unseat Call two years ago, took over as state vice chair after Don Ytterberg stepped down to run for Congress and is seeking a second term on a ticket with Call. Past legislative candidate Deborah Irvine is also in the race for vice chair. Brandi Meeks is challenging Fore in the contest for secretary.

The Republican state central committee is made up of state and county party officers, elected officials and bonus members from larger counties, determined by the Republican vote at the top of the ticket in the last election — one bonus member for every 10,000 votes cast for gubernatorial nominee Bob Beauprez, in this case. There are roughly 430 votes on the committee, though there are usually more members than that because some counties split their allotted votes — three for each county’s chair, vice chair and secretary, among multiple officers. The elected officials who sit on the central committee include members of Congress, statewide officials, legislators, district attorneys, CU regents and members of the State Board of Education.

Friday update:

On Friday, three of Colorado’s four Republican congressional representatives sent out a letter via the Call campaign endorsing Call for another term as state party chair, saying Call has “worked tirelessly” to elect Republicans in the state.

Pointing out that they’re part of “a historic Republican majority in the House of Representatives—our largest Republican majority since 1929,” U.S. Reps. Mike Coffman, Doug Lamborn and Scott Tipton write in the joint letter that Call has been instrumental in achieving GOP wins.

“He helped us raise the money we needed, provided the technology and training our volunteers needed to help us win, and he traveled to our districts and to every single county in Colorado to support us and so many of our fellow Republican candidates and local party officials,” they write. “Ryan’s assistance to each of us is not the only reason we support him for another term as our State Party Chairman. We also support him because of his track record of results, and because of his unwavering commitment to our conservative principles.”

The state’s fourth Republican member of Congress, freshman U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, hasn’t yet made an endorsement in the contest for state party leadership, his spokeswoman said on Friday.

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, the Republican who held the 4th Congressional District seat before Buck, earlier sent out an enthusiastic endorsement of Call.

“On November 4th, Colorado Republicans celebrated our best Election Day in over a decade,” Gardner wrote, touting the record of GOP victories in Colorado that included unseating his opponent, U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, keeping all four Republican seats in Congress, sweeping the statewide offices of state treasurer, attorney general and secretary of state, and winning a majority in the Colorado Senate.

“These all were great victories, and it would not have been possible without the principled leadership of Chairman Ryan Call at the helm of the Colorado Republican Committee,” Gardner wrote.

The letter from Coffman, Tipton and Lamborn made similar points and argued that it’s crucial that state Republicans make the right choice when they pick GOP leadership on March 14.

“It is vital that we build on our successes and keep a capable, experienced, tested state chairman that knows how to win as we begin a challenging presidential election cycle where the stakes for not only Colorado but the nation are so very high,” they wrote.

— Ernest@coloradostatesman.com

See the Feb. 13 print edition for full photo coverage.